On 17 October a year ago, the 11th Saeima, which was elected in extraordinary general election, convened for its first plenary sitting.
During this year, the Saeima held four regular and six extraordinary sessions and convened for a total of 62 plenary sittings. So far the 11th Saeima has received 420 draft laws for consideration and has adopted 174 laws.
At present, the Saeima has 15 standing committees and 15 subcommittees. It has formed 67 groups for interparliamentary relations with other countries and six permanent delegations that represent our country in interparliamentary organisations.
“Already in the first year of its work, the 11th Saeima managed to introduce a number of reforms and innovations that were impossible in the previous convocations. For example, the Saeima introduced the asset declaration, abolished the secret ballot for electing officials and now is actively working on the new wording of the Citizenship Law, which has not been amended for years. Along with its legislative activity, the Saeima also continued to implement the open parliament policy by involving sectoral experts and representatives from the non-governmental sector in its daily work and decision making. Fruitful cooperation is demonstrated, for instance, by the active involvement of NGOs in this year’s Open Door Day, when they informed visitors of the Saeima about opportunities of the general public to take part in the work of parliament,” pointed out Solvita Āboltiņa, Speaker of the Saeima.
After Latvia weathered the economic crisis, the 11th Saeima started to cut taxes on labour; it is planned that the personal income tax rate will be 24% in 2013, 22% in 2014, and 20% in 2015. The aim of the labour tax reform is to make sure that in competing for investments and jobs, expenditures in terms of taxes on labour in Latvia are equal to those in Estonia and Lithuania.
In order to boost Latvia’s regional competitiveness and ease inflation pressure on consumers provoked by the global price rise, the value added tax rate was reduced by one percentage point as of 1 June 2012, and it is now 21%.
As a step towards combating the shadow economy, the 11th Saeima adopted the Law on Declaring Assets and Unreported Income of Natural Persons, which requires natural persons once to declare their assets and report their savings in cash.
To address problems stemming from the ageing of the population, the parliament adopted amendments to the pension law that will gradually increase the retirement age up to 65. The amendments also keep early retirement as an option.
The 11th Saeima abolished electing officials by secret ballot. The Saeima amended its Rules of Procedure so as to apply the open voting procedure in electing members of the Presidium of the Saeima, the Ombudsman, the Auditor General, judges, the Head of the Constitution Protection Bureau, the Prosecutor General, the Head of the Corruption Prevention and Combating Bureau, the Chairperson of the Central Election Commission and other statutory public officials. For the time being, the secret ballot procedure has been retained in electing the President of Latvia and judges of the Constitutional Court.
In order to improve cooperation between the tax administration and entrepreneurs, the Law on Taxes and Duties was amended to include provisions on creating a list of honest enterprises with whom closer and more efficient collaboration will be developed in the framework of an in-depth cooperation programme; this is intended to reduce the administrative burden on enterprises. Enterprises included in this list will have the right to take advantage of certain privileges and benefits.
The Law on Tax Support Measure was adopted to help entrepreneurs pay the tax debt incurred as a result of the economic crisis. Entrepreneurs who pay the principal amount of tax debt and 10% of applicable penalties will be offered an opportunity to have up to 90% of the past due fees and penalties cancelled. The Law stipulates that the previous 18-month term for discharging a tax debt will be increased to up to 60 months, depending on the amount of tax debt.
Cooperation among the Baltic MPs achieved tangible results as amendments to the Public Procurement Law provide the Baltic States with an opportunity to have joint procurement of medicines and medical equipment and thus to guarantee lower prices.
The Saeima also worked on improving the judiciary by enhancing the procedure for examining civil matters and accelerating the criminal procedure.
The parliament began to work on several other legal reforms; for example, it planned to modernise the Family Law part of the Civil Law, and it introduced a new regulation on the legal capacity of persons that conforms to international law. Planned amendments to the Criminal Law will substantially reform the criminal punishment policy and thus will encourage law abidance and prevent reoffending. It is planned to reduce the maximum and minimum prison sentences and to impose less severe punishments for crimes that do not threaten human life, health or sexual inviolability. It is also planned to introduce a broader range of punishment alternatives to prison sentence.
Amendments to the Citizenship Law will modernise this Law, which has remained unchanged since 1998, by enabling Latvian expatriates to acquire dual citizenship, Latvians in exile and their descendants to retain their citizenship, and ethnic Latvians and Livs permanently residing outside Latvia to be granted citizenship. The amendments will also set forth how citizenship is granted to children born in Latvia to non-citizens and to children born abroad into families of Latvian citizens.
During its first year of work, the 11th Saeima implemented the open parliament policy by holding the annual Saeima and NGO forum, organising the 2nd Youth Parliament in cooperation with NGOs, holding the traditional Job Shadow Day, Night of Museums and Open Door Day, as well as hosting a number of exhibitions. Several conferences and discussions were also held in cooperation with NGOs.
The extraordinary general election took place on 17 September 2011. Seats were distributed among the candidate lists as follows: 31 seats for Concord Centre, 22 seats for Zatlers’ Reform Party, 20 seats for Unity, 14 seats for National Alliance of All for Latvia! and For Fatherland and Freedom/LNNK, and 13 seats for Union of Greens and Farmers.
The first plenary sitting of the 11th Saeima took place on 17 October 2011.
Photos from the first sitting of the 11th Saeima and election of the Presidium are available at:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/saeima/sets/72157627915015792/with/6256514843/
When using the photos, please give credit to the Saeima Chancellery.
Saeima Press Service